Train at BB&T Pavilion

Train threw a party at the BB&T Pavilion on Friday, June 9, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Natasha Bedingfield opened the show and danced across the stage as if she were floating on air, belting out hit after hit. She expressed her appreciation at being able to open each show on the tour, allowing her to pump up the crowd. Bedingfield’ s music was very uplifting as the crowd sang along with the funky ‘Pocket of Sunshine’, and the power songs ‘These Words’, and ‘Unwritten’.

O.A.R. then took the stage opening with ‘This Town’. The melodic, six-piece band ran the gamut of musical stylings, with each song delivering its own vibe. From ‘Shattered (Turn the Car Around)’, to ‘I Go Through Heaven’, to their last song of the set, a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘No Women, No Cry’, O.A.R. had the crowd swaying and rocking out from start to finish.

In support of their new album, ‘A Girl, A Bottle, A Boat’, Train opened the headlining portion of the show with ‘Drink Up’, and the crowd was more than willing to oblige. frontman Pat Monahan came out with guitar in hand, but mid-way through the first song took it off and tossed hit very high across the stage to a roadie. During, ‘If It’ s Love’, Monahan walked across the stage and grabbed fan’ s cell phones, which were tossed to him from the crowd, to take selfies from the stage. Monahan eventually grabbed his own cell phone to shoot a Panorama of the crowd (which he then posted on Instagram). During ‘Calling All Angels’, Train released party balls as the band performed, and the arena became a huge beach ball festival.

Monahan was then joined by Natasha Bedingfield to perform ‘Bruises’, a reflective song looking back at a long-lost love from high school. “Does anybody in the crowd remember this one?”Monahan asked the audience before breaking into mega-hit ‘Meet Virginia’, which featured a tremendous guitar
solo by new guitarist Luis Maldonado. This sparked Monahan to ask, “Hey, what ever happened to Guitar solos? Should we have another?”Luis immediately went into a second solo for Meet Virginia. The band slowed down during ‘Marry Me’, when each of the band members grabbed a guitar and all strummed along to the swaying crowd.

Changing it up once again, O.A.R. appeared back on stage as the crowd experienced 1980’s flashbacks as the bands played a cover of Paul Simon’s ‘You Call Me Al’ as a redux of the original video played on the giant video wall behind them (Monahan took on the Paul Simon role, and lead singer of O.A.R .Marc Roberge played the part of Chevy Chase). Monahan even played the penny whistle solo! Throughout the entire show, Train had cameras pointed at the crowd which flashed up on the big screen. They also had two cameramen on the front side of the stage and at one point, Monahan asked for the video camera, and walked it along the stage shooting the crowd to give the audience his perspective. How do you end a high-energy show? Open the encore with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker; of course! Monahan did a fantastic job of singing it note for note, while guitarist Luis Maldonado once again got to shred the axe. As the final song ‘Drops of Jupiter’ was performed, the stage was filled with outer space visuals, and at the crescendo of the song, confetti cannons placed in front of the stage blasted off and filled the inside of the BB&T pavilion, putting the cherry on top of this musical experience.